


We Need Insurance?!

by d_s_t_e



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Black 2 & White 2 | Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 Versions
Genre: #NotSponsored, Gen, Humor, Insurance, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-10-11 10:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20544842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d_s_t_e/pseuds/d_s_t_e
Summary: Here at last by popular demand: a comical story in which the people of Unova discover that it's actually a good idea to have some safety standards. This is the saga of a Commercial Loss Control Representative. One man's quest to sniff out every safety flaw, eliminate every hazard, and teach the entire Unova region that insurance is the greatest industry in the PokéWorld!First place short story winner Pokémon Watty Awards 2019Cover by me using images from Pokémon MastersRated PG for depiction of things you Should Not Try at Home and characters who display shocking ignorance of the insurance industry





	1. In the Hallowed Halls of the Unova Pokémon League

The president of Unova burst up the steps with a wild shout of: "Rosa!"

The champion stood up from her lavish red velvet throne and looked at the woman in the bedraggled gray pantsuit. Her big blue eyes blinked in confusion. "Yes?"

The president collapsed onto her hands and knees, panting for breath. "You have no idea how difficult it is to reach you."

"Actually I do." Rosa beamed. "Caitlin and I are training partners now, you know."

"Do you realize they won't let anybody talk to you unless they beat every member of the Elite Four in battle first?"

"Um, yeah, that's how the rules work." She put a hand on her hip and flounced her yellow skort.

"I came to talk to you about official business, Rosa!" The president paused to take another gasping breath. "I had to borrow Pokémon from both my daughter and my son for this. I've been trying for three days, and I only won this time because I personally punched that Sigilyph in the face."

"Wow, you must be stronger than you look," Rosa said, finally beginning to walk across the battlefield.

"I think I broke my middle finger."

Rosa paused. "Well that sounds bad."

The president growled under her breath. "You have no idea, small child."

She was finally climbing to her feet when Caitlin floated up the stairs. Her blonde hair, as usual, was spread about her like a cape, not a strand out of place. Her actual cape of pink gossamer had not the slightest wrinkle nor a hint of wilting out of its inverted tulip shape. Her butterfly-shaped hair clips seemed to suggest that she had literally flown to the top of the pyramid that housed the champion. In contrast to the president, whose brown hair had broken out of its simple bun and was literally dripping with sweat.

"I apologize for not warning you, Rosa," the Psychic trainer said in a voice both soft and sweet. "My Sigilyph has never been attacked by a human before, and I had to convince the poor dear that it wasn't experiencing a dreadful hallucination."

"Did she actually defeat your Sigilyph?" Rosa asked, her own impossible hair strands swinging gently as she walked to meet her friend.

"Not really. She just sort of... froze her into shock and ran away screaming."

"Look," the president said, stretching out her arm in front of the champion to stop her in her tracks, "it doesn't really matter if I won or not. What matters is that you are the chief operating officer of the Unova Pokémon League, the entire economy depends on the success of your company, and currently you're losing Poké Dollars hand over fist."

Rosa turned to her and blinked again. "But I've been winning every battle."

"She's the best we've ever had," Caitlin agreed with a nod of her delicate head.

"I know you have, but the gyms—"

"Oh," Caitlin interrupted. "Do we need to replace some leaders who keep losing? Those three brothers in Striaton City do seem to give out an awful lot of badges. I've heard some people say that you could beat all three of them with just a single level fifteen Pokémon!"

"Maybe I should give them two or three years off to spend on training," Rosa suggested. "I bet that would make everybody happy!"

"Look," the president said again, "the ineffectiveness of your employees is really none of my—"

"Who are you again?" Caitlin asked.

The president squeezed her hand into a fist so tight she cried out in pain, having apparently forgotten about her broken finger. She let out a low hiss before continuing: "I am the president of Unova."

"We have a president?"

"Does anybody seem to know that I exist? No. Is the general populace under the impression that the champion rules over all things like a magnificent empress? Yes. Does that change the fact that we do, in fact, have a president or that I am she? No. No it does not."

"If nobody knows that you exist," Rosa said thoughtfully, "how'd you win in the election?"

"I voted for myself, ok?"

Caitlin and Rosa exchanged a look. The president took the opportunity to dig an impressively thick and official-looking manila folder out of her bag.

"This is an agreement that I signed with the government of the Kanaduh region. They don't have a Pokémon league up there, and their prime minister in particular has expressed an interest in learning more about ours. In exchange for Rosa travelling there to consult for them, they have agreed to send a sort of consultant who represents the largest branch of an industry unique to their region. They call it the 'insurance industry'."

"Insurance?" Rosa asked.

"Apparently they provide compensation when a business experiences certain kinds of losses. You know, like the ones the Pokémon League is experiencing. Right now. The ones that you don't even seem to know about."

"Well how was I supposed to know that we were losing money?" Rosa cried out, tears springing to her eyes. "I'm only twelve!"

"To be fair," Caitlin said, "Alder is a sixty-two year old man, and we nearly went bankrupt during his time as champion."

"The Kanaduh region has promised to help with that," the president said, tapping firmly on her folder. "The man they're sending has experience in evaluating businesses to make sure they are safe and that they are treating their employees well so that people don't get hurt and gym buildings don't fall down like they're made of straw. The prime minister assures me that it is in the insurance industry's best interests to take care of the people that they're doing business with, and I believe him. Quite frankly, I spent less than a day with this man who's coming to consult for us, and I'm convinced. Insurance is the thing we need."

"Ok then," Rosa said, "I guess a visit to the Kanaduh region might be fun. I heard they have this super rare bird Pokémon that's unstoppable in battle. I think it's called a Gooz. It's so strong that all the Kanaduns are terrified of it!"

"That sounds nice, Rosa," the president said placatingly. Honestly she couldn't care less as long as the champion was lending her support.

Maybe this time when the media picked up the story the president could actually get her name spelled correctly in the caption of the photo that labelled her as one of Rosa's "temporary assistants".

As Rosa and Caitlin chattered on about whether Kanaduh had any fairy types and whether Rosa would take lots of pictures while she was there, the president found herself smiling in spite of all the nonsense she'd gone through to get here. Good things were going to come from this insurance business, she was sure of it.


	2. Grand Welcome at the Mistralton City Airport

Gym leader Skyla was dutifully waiting at the end of the Mistralton City airport runway for the arrival of the "Loss Control Representative" who was scheduled to arrive. Rosa didn't really explain the situation very clearly, but she was clear about the fact that she was counting on Skyla to be the friendly face to welcome their new visitor. As such, she had painted the windows of both the nearby greenhouses in gigantic rainbow bubble letters: "Welcome to Unova, Mr. Kanadun!"

Rosa hadn't actually said his name, but Skyla was sure he would appreciate it anyway.

As the plane came in for a landing, Skyla's reddish brown hair whipped backwards, and she planted her feet firmly to keep from being blown off course. Luckily, she had a lot of practice with this sort of thing.

The plane rolled to a stop, and the door opened almost immediately. It was a very small plane, and Rosa knew that Mr. Kanadun was the only person on it other than the pilot. Not many people travelled to Unova from Kanaduh, although she didn't really know why.

As she spotted an unfamiliar man emerging from the plane, she jumped up and down and waved an arm high above her head, hoping he would spot the pretty letters that she'd painted for him. "Helloooo!" she called out brightly.

He turned towards her, giving a slightly smaller wave. He was older than she had expected, with gray hair all the way and some wrinkles on his face. He was dressed in fancy clothes, all black and white. But the big surprise was the Pokémon partner crawling next to him: bright green with eight yellow legs and buggy eyes.

"Is that a Spinarak?" she said out loud.

"Ah, I see that you've met Webs," said Mr. Kanadun, who was apparently close enough to hear. "Well spotted, young lady, she is indeed a Spinarak of the Kanadun variety."

"I've never seen one of those before." Skyla looked her over carefully, taking note once more of the two extra legs as well as the lack of a horn on her head. Additionally, it seemed that the pattern on her back was fixed into a permanent smiley face. "It looks a little different, but not that much. Does she have any cool powers or a different typing?"

"Well, she's perfectly harmless if that's what you're wondering. No poison."

Skyla's face fell. "So what does she do in a Pokémon battle?"

"Oh, we don't have Pokémon battles in the Kanaduh region," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "Webs helps me with my work, which is even better."

The Spinarak clicked her red pincers together happily.

"Well, now that you've met my partner," he extended his hand for her to shake, "Benjamin Sharpe at your service."

Skyla forced a smile back on her face, remembering that she was meant to be the friendly welcoming committee. "I'm Skyla. I pilot cargo planes and also run the gym here in Mistralton. Would you like me to help you with your bags?"

"I would very much appreciate it. Thank you."

Actually, he only had two, both of which were surprisingly light. She grunted not with effort but surprise and nearly dropped them as they swung violently in response to the force she had exerted.

"So, um, why exactly are you here, Mr. Kanadun?" she asked as the three began walking/crawling to the Pokémon Center.

He smiled at her. "Benjamin. I'm here to perform an inspection of your Pokémon Center, along with others in the region. And more generally, I suppose, to explain the value of doing business with my company. I'm not usually a sales person, but the president of Unova did request it, so who am I to say no?"

"We have a president?" Skyla asked.

He seemed not to hear her. "At any rate I can't wait to look around your gym. I've never inspected any business quite like that before."

"Because you don't do Pokémon battles in Kanaduh," Skyla recalled. "What do you do for fun?"

"Oh, I'm sure the young folks have their own opinions, but personally I like to read a good book by the fireplace."

"Oh, that sounds nice," Skyla said, trying to be polite.

"Oh, yes, I'm in the middle of a real page turner: Thirty Years as an Insurance Agent. It's about a young woman who sets out to become an insurance agent, you see. The schooling, the job interviews, the never-ending desire to serve her customers! And the real question: why does she only end up doing it for thirty years?"

"I'm sure I have no idea."

"I do!" he began to chuckle. "You see, I was only joking with you. The author of the book is still alive, and she was only writing about the experience she's had up until the present. No one would really dream of leaving such a job behind."

"Uh huh," Skyla said.

Benjamin looked at her with a slight frown. "You seem unconvinced."

"Well you see, sir, I still don't understand what insurance even is."

"You don't?" He looked absolutely horrified. "Why, insurance is the greatest thing in the entire world! Let me put it this way. You own a house, right?"

She nodded.

"But you don't have insurance for it."

This time she shook her head.

"Well, if lightning strikes your house and starts a fire, what will happen then?"

"I'd call out my Swanna to use BubbleBeam," she replied.

"Well that sounds fine, but there would still be damage, right?"

"I guess so."

"So what are you going to do then?"

"Be really sad?"

"I was actually going for 'pay someone to fix it', but alright."

"Oh yeah, that, too."

"Good, so you have to pay someone to fix it, and that costs a lot of money," Benjamin said. "Maybe that will even cost more money than what you have saved up. Maybe you just bought your house and you spent all your money getting it."

"Well then I think my first answer was the right one after all," Skyla pointed out.

He chuckled. "Fair enough. But if you had insurance, it would mean that you paid a small amount of money every month to a company like mine, and then after your house got struck by lightning we would give you the money you need to repair it."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"But how does your company make money then?" Skyla asked. "If I only paid you a little bit of money and then you gave me way more than I gave you because my repair bill is so big?"

"Well, the insurance company makes money because there are lots of other people paying us for the same thing, but their houses didn't get struck by lightning at the same time yours did. So now we can use the money they paid us to help you with your problem. And we also make money because you pay us in advance of when bad things could happen, and that means we can take your money and invest it so that we have more than what we started with when the lightning strike occurs. Just like the way that banks make money by giving loans and earning interest on them but they'll always give you all your money back if and when you need it."

"I guess that makes sense," Skyla said. "Isn't that a little risky, though? It could have been a giant lightning storm that hit a lot of houses."

Benjamin nodded. "That's the tricky thing about insurance. It's always going to be risky, but we try our best to improve the odds for ourselves any way we can. Like you said, we would lose a lot of money if a lot of houses got struck by lightning and all the owners of those houses were customers of ours. That's why we have customers all over Kanaduh, so there's no way all of them get hit by the same storm at the same time. But we can also make things safer by helping our customers learn how to protect their homes. Like encouraging them to install lightning rods and to be careful with any electric Pokémon that might attract lightning to themselves. The safer your house is, the more money we make as a company, you see? And that's where my job comes in. I'm here to investigate your gym to make sure you're being safe."

Skyla was concentrating so much on this explanation that she smacked right into the wall of the Pokémon Center. "What the...? Oh, I guess we're here."

"Well, if you're going to bump into any building, it might as well be a hospital I suppose." Benjamin chuckled.

"You think Nurse Joy will give me a band aid and a lollipop?" she asked, rubbing her forehead.

"We can always ask," he said, leading the way inside.

Webs crawled across the floor and directly up the side of the front counter, startling the poor nurse when her yellow legs poked into sight.

"Don't worry; she's just a Kanadun Spinarak," Benjamin said. "There won't be any Workers' Compensation claims on my watch."

Webs clacked her pincers together and made a high pitched noise that was maybe supposed to be a laugh? Skyla wasn't even sure if that had been a joke.

The nurse handed Benjamin a room key, then carried Webs off to an examination room for a standard checkup. Skyla helped him carry his bags the rest of the way there, although she suspected he would have gotten there just fine on his own with how insanely light they were.

"What do you have in these?" she wondered aloud.

"The important question is what don't I have?" he said, as if he was trying to be philosophical and profound.

"I don't know, maybe a simple answer to my question?"

He chuckled again. "Well, I hope I've been answering your questions about insurance anyway."

"Yeah," Skyla said, nodding slowly. "I'm guessing there's a lot more to it, though."

"If you mean the fact that we deal with a lot more than houses getting struck by lightning, you'd be absolutely right. Insurance covers all kinds of things and deals with all kinds of possible disasters."

"Like that time when all of Opelucid City froze?"

"Sudden hail and snow storms? Oh yes, that's the kind of thing we Kanadans know all too well. Ice dams, property damage, auto accidents..."

"Wow, if we could have money to rebuild things every time Team Plasma went out on a rampage, I can definitely see why Rosa wanted this to happen!"

Benjamin stopped in front of the nurse's station with a frown. "Team Plasma?"

Skyla was astonished to learn that the Kanadun had never even heard the concept of an evil team of villains roaming around a region for the purpose of gaining power, achieving their dastardly desires, and generally causing mayhem. She explained it all on their walk back to her gym after Benjamin picked Webs up from the nurse.

"And no one in this entire region has insurance?" he repeated after it was all said and done. "No protections against theft or terrorism or... flooding caused by the awakening of legendary beasts that want to cover all the land with water so there's more space for the fish to live? Good gracious, is that really the sort of thing that happens here?"

"That really is the sort of thing that happens here," Skyla confirmed.

But Benjamin was smiling. "No. No, you're pulling my leg. I can see it in your face. Legendary water beasts indeed! Do you pull these pranks on all your visitors?"

As much as Skyla tried to argue with him, she only seemed to run up against more and more arguments about why Team Aqua's plan was absolutely ridiculous and no one in their right mind could actually think it would accomplish anything because rain water has to come from somewhere and that "somewhere" is water evaporating from the oceans and that's just how the water cycle works. And she couldn't for the life of her say she actually disagreed.

He just got more and more convinced that she'd been making it all up to entertain him, and she could have sworn that she saw a little twinkle in his eye as he not-so-innocently asked her to gather all of her employees on the runway before they got started with the inspection.

Skyla could have sworn that he was up to something, but he actually just went into a speech about who he was and why he'd come and what insurance was, mostly the same things he'd said to her already. Before she knew it, he was saying: "So, in conclusion", but then he started singing. Singing badly.

"If you need a little insurance..."

Webs, who had crawled up onto the nose of a nearby plane in order to see and be seen by the crowd, began to dance a jig, eight legs crossing and uncrossing in crazy combinations while her neon green body bobbed up and down in time to the music.

"Call 1-800 INSURE NOW."

Skyla who was quite good at counting, said, "Wait..."

And yet he continued, "1-800 INSURANCE."

"That's... not even the same."

"Call 1-800 INSURE NOW, your insurance needs taken care of now!" He beamed at the assembled group brightly. "Do you want to hear the verses? We have one for every line of business that we cover: home, auto, property, inland marine..."

"What in the world is an 'inland marine'?" somebody called out.

"Well, I'm so thrilled you asked!" he said before launching into a long and complicated explanation that Skyla tuned out immediately. Whatever "inland marine" coverage was, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with her job as a cargo pilot.

And after that the questions just went on and on and on.

Skyla groaned. It was going to be a long day.


	3. The Gyms of Unova

Skyla's employees seemed to be enchanted with the old man in spite of his total lack of singing abilities. The portion of his presentation in which he answered questions quickly devolved into a bunch of people clustered around him as they engaged in friendly chatter.

"Hey, guys," one of Skyla's gym trainers, a pilot named Flynn, said, "does anyone know how many Kanaduns it takes to change a lightbulb?"

"Um, I'm pretty sure it's one?" Skyla said, but even the Pokémon rolled their eyes at that.

"Oh, I've got it," said a second pilot named Chase. "It takes one person to change the lightbulb and another person to defrost it first." When no one laughed, he added, "You know, because it's cold up there."

"No, man," a third chimed in. "It takes one person to change the lightbulb and second person to apologize to every person in the room about the temporary darkness."

This one got some laughs.

"Oh, yeah, because Kanadans are too polite," Chase said. "Good one."

"I'm sorry to say that you're all wrong," Flynn said, "because the truth is that no matter how many of them try, they just kana get it dun!"

More laugher ensued, and Benjamin spoke up only after it had begun to die down. "Charming. Now, hold on, I think that I've got one for you: how many Unovans does it take to put an end to ethnocentric mockery?"

"Ooh, somebody better call Nurse Joy cause I think Flynn needs some burn heal!"

Benjamin chuckled along before calling up in the general direction of the roof: "Everything looking good up there, Webs?"

The Spinarak, who had attached a camera to her back with webbing, gave a happy click and crawled back down the wall. Benjamin put the camera back inside his briefcase and said, "It seems the exterior of the building is in fine shape. Shall we head inside then?"

"I'll lead the way," Skyla said cheerfully. Now that it was finally time to get down to the business of showing off her beloved gym, she was returning to her usual good spirit.

They stepped into the entrance area, which had a grey cement floor decorated with yellow stripes in an arrow pattern. She was about to point out the airplane nose and cockpit displayed to the left, but Benjamin had turned around to face back the way they'd come.

"Everybody does these inspections a little differently," he said, "but the first thing I like to do is check the exit signs. I notice yours is missing."

"Exit sign?" Skyla asked blankly.

"It's very important to mark all exits in case of an emergency," he said, making a note on his clipboard. "I suggest you fix that right away."

Finally he turned around and stopped dead in his tracks with surprise. "Wow, is that... are there airplanes underneath us?"

"There sure are," Skyla said proudly. "That one over there is a classic model—"

"And there aren't any guardrails?!" Benjamin stretched a hand out into the empty space to the right of the narrow walkway. "You do realize they're required for any areas with a drop of over nine meters."

One of the pilots bent over to whisper into Skyla's ear: "What exactly is a 'meter'?"

Skyla ignored this and responded to Benjamin instead. "Oh, I had no idea. Um, don't you think the planes are cool, though?"

Benjamin was breathing rather quickly. "I would be much more inclined to agree if I could appreciate them from a safer perspective. "Perhaps we should continue." He walked through the pillars marking the official entryway and looked down at the floor. "On a positive note, I appreciate your non-slip surfaces. I also notice that you have a light breeze blowing. I assume you have fans running for the purpose of climate contr—"

He stepped out from behind a wall and was immediately hit by the full force of the wind that was actually being produced. Skyla grabbed his hand and yanked him back before he could be blown away, but Webs was not so fortunate. Thinking fast, she spit a web onto the metal grating, but the wind picked up her tiny body and whipped it around like an eight-legged kite as she clung on for dear life.

Finally, the wind died down and she scampered back to safety, scurrying up Benjamin's body until she sat whimpering under his left arm.

"What was that?" Benjamin demanded. "Don't tell me this is all another prank."

"Of course not, silly. I turned my gym into a wind tunnel!" She pulled a rolled up floor plan out of her bag and began tracing the path through it with her finger. "You see, the trainers come in here, and then they have to run across the metal grating to these little shelters when the wind picks up. And when it dies down they get to run to the next one, but they have to battle with my pilots on the way. If they're not too careful, they'll get blown all the way back into a wall!"

"What are those?" Benjamin asked, pointing to little black areas on the map.

"Those are holes in the floor," she said matter-of-factly.

"And people get blown across the holes?" For some reason, the loss control representative was beginning to get very pale.

"Oh, don't worry, the fans aren't fully automated," Skyla reassured him. "I have people operating them who make sure they don't stop blowing until everybody in the gym is safely up against the walls."

"Uh huh."

"You don't look so good, Mr. Kanadun. Do you need something? A glass of water?"

"Turning off the fans would be absolutely lovely," he said in a halfway strangled sort of voice.

"Aw, that's no fun," Skyla pouted before remembering that she was supposed to be nice to the visitor. "But that's ok. You've already seen the way it works. Hey, Flynn, would you go tell the girls operating them to take a break for an hour or so?"

The pilot nodded and ran off, clearly demonstrating his expertise in navigating the unusual setup.

"Do your employees at least have safety training?" Benjamin asked. "Do they wear protective padding to mitigate the risk of injury from getting blown up against the walls all day? Do you have your customers sign waivers before they come inside?"  
"Um, no to everything," Skyla said, hoping she was being helpful.

"I think I'm going to sit down for a minute," Benjamin said, sliding down to the floor with his back against the protective wall. Webs crawled onto his chest, her pincers clicking worriedly.

Skyla was just wondering if she should get that water after all when Flynn returned.

"Everything's shut down until you give the a-ok," he reported.

Benjamin let out a sigh of relief and stood back up. "Alright, Webs, let's get back into the flow of things. Inspections should be fun, remember? Oh, I know, how do you feel about going to the restrooms? I'll bet they're nice and sanitary, plenty of toilet paper and soap and posters teaching the proper methods of hand washing..."

Webs let out a happy "ooh"ing sort of sound and scuttled down.

"I guess if you think that's exciting," Skyla said, attempting to hide her steadily-growing confusion. "But maybe after you can stick around to watch a battle?"

"Hey, Skyla," called a voice from behind them, "I've got great news!"

"Oh, Worker Cliff," she said. "It's good to see you!"

"I like your construction helmet," Benjamin complimented.

"Oh, I didn't realize you had company," the man said, stopping just inside the entryway. "Ah, what of it; I'm sure that he'll enjoy this, too. I fixed your cannons, Skyla!"

He wheeled in giant metal contraption that a small girl seemed to be standing inside of. He flipped a switch on the side, and the part that she was standing in tilted to an angle facing the front part of the gym.

"Cannon?" Benjamin said. The confusion on his face suddenly transformed into outright shock as a loud boom and a puff of smoke erupted from the cannon and the girl went sailing through the air.

"Wheeeee!"

Webs jumped up in the air with a screech and ran after her, shooting Sticky Webs in all directions until the girl landed with a giggle in the center of a very conveniently placed net.

"This isn't going to be a normal loss control inspection, is it?" Benjamin said quietly.

His exhausted Spinarak responded by simply flopping to the ground.

***

From that point on, all bets were off. Benjamin spent the rest of his visit seeing one crazy thing after the next and very quickly understanding why the Unova Pokémon League was experiencing so many losses.

He learned that Skyla's gym had a completely different setup just two years earlier, when she'd had to rebuild the entire interior because of a challenger who had summoned up a rainstorm, used an Emolga to turn it into a lightning storm, and finally busted up the floors with a Conkeldurr.

"I totally defeated him with my Swoobat in the end though," Skyla had said, as if this made the total destruction of her property entirely worthwhile.

He learned that, in the same two year time period, the gym in Striaton City had been destroyed so completely that they'd completely given up and rebuilt it as a restaurant. The Nacrene City gym was destroyed and turned into a library. The Icirrus Gym was abandoned completely. Three brand new gyms were built, and all the others had been redesigned and/or expanded at least one if not multiple times.

Every time, he asked how the damage had occurred, and every time they told a crazy story involving a high stakes gym battle, sabotage by mysterious evil-doers, or extremely questionable decision making for the original design.

"That sounds horrible," he'd say, and their reply was, "No, Mr. Kanadun, it was awesome!"

The lack of first aid kits, fire extinguishers, and proper insulation for electrical wiring were the least of his concerns.

The water-themed Humilau gym had a real problem with slippery wooden walkways and a total lack of lifeguard training.

The Virbank gym treated its employees to a constant barrage of live rock and roll music that far exceeded the eighty five A-weighted decibel limit without offering the slightest protection against hearing loss. Also the gym leader liked to stand in an actual puddle of toxic waste.

The Castelia gym required travel via giant silk cocoons, which Webs enjoyed but Benjamin certainly did not. And even she was able to recognize that the risk of falling was pretty unacceptable if you did not happen to be of the eight-legged variety of life forms.

The Driftveil gym definitely showcased a lack of proper lighting as Benjamin and Webs zoomed across open conveyor belts in total darkness.

The Opelucid Gym also used darkness, but this time it was for the purpose of hiding just how far you would have to fall if you were to accidentally trip and fall off of its lighted walkways. And for the unfortunate employees, the curved hands of a dragon statue were the only perch they had. That was not to even mention the fact that challengers were expected to get up to the level of those employees by riding on the head of a second dragon statue that jerked and tilted dangerously while it went through "lifelike" movements of its neck.

The only gym that even had a proper amount of exits was the Aspertia gym, and that was because it was outside.

Realistically, Benjamin should have given up after the fiasco of his experience in Mistralton City, but he was a persistent guy, and Webs was an even more persistent arachnid. They were determined to do the best they could to help these unfortunate Unovan souls who didn't seem to realize that constantly rebuilding things costs money and that practicing safety is more fun than even the best untested roller coaster.

He pointed out every single hazard that he saw. He waited patiently through all of their complaints and gave thoughtful explanations to even the most basic of their questions. He even had to explain Kanadun laws to them because they didn't seem to have any of their own.

In the end, he left each one of them with a stack of notes and safety pamphlets stacked a mile high. He compiled a full list of everything and delivered it to their CEO, who he was barely even surprised to learn was a twelve year old named Rosa who had won the job through battling with Pokémon that had gotten as strong as they had by defeating an entire team of evil-doers. Because of course that was a job this region would entrust to children.

He had never been so happy to return to Kanaduh and to the cozy little fireplace that had a shiny red extinguisher mounted just above it.


	4. The Verdict

"Maple Leaf Insurance rejected us?" Rosa exclaimed.

"Yes," the president of Unova sighed. "Yes, they did. I'm given to understand that insurance companies have the right to do that if they think that it would be too risky to provide coverage to a certain business."

"But how could they?" Rosa asked, her eyes rapidly filling up with tears. "I thought that they were gonna be our friends."

"Well, I guess it wouldn't help anybody if they went out of business. But it sounds as though Benjamin did give your gym leaders a lot of excellent advice while he was here."

"That's true." Rosa sniffled. "He said that we need Pokémon attack-proof buildings. And protected areas for challengers and employees to stand in during battles. And some things called regulations."

"Regulations? He actually said that we need regulations?" The president clasped her hands together. "Oh, that wonderful man. You didn't happen to ask if he was single?"

"Right, because that's a completely normal thing for a twelve year old to think about."

"Well, ah, you have a single mother."

Rosa rolled her eyes.

The president cleared her throat awkwardly. "Well, then, about those regulations."

"Oh yeah." Rosa nodded. "I was thinking we should get some."

"Yes," the president exclaimed, her eyes shining with happiness. "Oh, yes, I would like nothing more!"

"Mr. Sharpe told me that Kanaduh has a lot of good ones because of their prime minister. Maybe we should—"

"Ah, no!" the president interrupted, literally jumping a few inches into the air. When she landed again with a click of her high heels and a mild stumble, her face flushed red. She paused and cleared her throat. "Er, what I meant was that Unova already has a president. Which is better than a prime minister. Yes, definitely better."

Rosa frowned for a second.

"What we need is a congress," the president said. "A congress would have lots of representatives, um, people I mean, from all over the region. All these people. Good people. Smart people. The best that we can find. All together in one place to make some big decisions about regulations." She began muttering rapidly under her breath at that point, something about "and also taxes and trade policies and a functioning police force and..." but Rosa couldn't really hear it.

"What was that?" she asked, bending her head closer.

"Just think of it like a party," the president concluded. "Yes, in fact I can promise that there will be parties."

"A congress, huh?" Rosa put a hand up to her chin thoughtfully. "Alright, let's do it. I'll make a speech tomorrow so everyone will know how wonderful it is!"

The president of Unova nearly fainted in relief.

And so it was that a single representative of a single insurance company changed the fate of an entire region.

The Unovan congress, not knowing how a congress is supposed to act, got together and actually got stuff done. Quite a lot of stuff, in fact. So much stuff that they had time for very many parties.

Laws were written, police officers were trained, fire inspectors and other safety experts began to make their rounds. And eventually the day arrived when the Unova Pokémon League had become so safe that they actually were able to get a good insurance policy.

It did not come from Kanaduh or Maple Leaf Insurance, but it turned out to be from someplace even better. A land of snow and maple trees. A land where Miltank thrived. A land flowing with Moo Moo Milk and the finest of cheeses. It was a land of untold wonders, their insurance industry but one among them.

The Unovan congress declared a national holiday on the effective date of the Pokémon League's brand new policy, and there was much rejoicing. And so the former president of Unova took her grandchildren to the Nimbasa City amusement park to see the celebration.

As they slowly rose up to the top of the magnificent ferris wheel that had a copy of its safety inspection permit posted proudly on the door of every single car, she came to the end of her retelling of this very story.

"So you see, kids, I'm the one who made it happen. And that's why I'll go down in history as the greatest president Unova has ever had!"

Her grandchildren, who had stopped listening after the first three words, turned to look at each other in confusion. "You used to be the president?"

And she couldn't help but laugh. "Well, I guess that some things never change."

~THE END~


End file.
